DoubleClick Loss Grows to $103.5M in Third Quarter

DoubleClick Inc. said yesterday its loss for the third quarter ended Sept. 30 rose to $103.5 million, or 77 cents per share, from $10.7 million last year, or 9 cents per share.

The company also reported lower net revenue of $92.7 million for the quarter, down 31 percent from $135.2 million a year ago. Revenue from DoubleClick's TechSolutions division fell to $48.5 million, from $53.5 million in 2000. The division delivered 161 billion impressions across its DART and e-mail platforms in the quarter.

Its Global Media division posted $22.2 million in net revenue, down 65 percent from $64.3 million a year earlier. Revenue from its Data division rose slightly, to $24.1 million from just over $24 million a year ago.

"DoubleClick has successfully executed a diversification strategy, with our direct marketing business now making up over 40 percent of DoubleClick's gross profit," Kevin Ryan, DoubleClick's CEO, noted in a statement. "Marketers tend to shift dollars into direct response marketing in tough market environments, and DoubleClick will benefit from this trend."

The company said it had $778 million in cash and marketable securities at the end of the third quarter.

DoubleClick also said it reduced its headcount 21 percent since third-quarter 2000 and now has 1,659 employees.

For the fourth quarter, DoubleClick forecasts revenue of $84 million to $92 million. It projects a pro forma net loss per share of 3 cents to 5 cents.

The company forecasts fourth-quarter TechSolutions revenue of $48 million to $50 million, Data revenue of $18 million to $21 million and Global Media revenue of $20 million to $23 million.

DoubleClick also said yesterday that it revised the terms of its acquisition of permission-based e-mail services provider MessageMedia Inc. Under the revised agreement, DoubleClick will issue 1 million shares of its common stock, or 0.0146 of a share for each share of MessageMedia stock. The deal, now worth just more than $9 million.

The acquisition, which was announced in June, originally called for DoubleClick to issue 0.0436 shares of its common stock, or about $41.6 million. DoubleClick also will make available to MessageMedia up to $1.5 million in bridge financing.

The transaction is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter.

Earlier this month, DoubleClick announced its purchase of the technology assets of marketing firm L90 Inc., Los Angeles. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. DoubleClick is rumored to have paid $20 million for L90's adMonitor ad-serving and tracking platform and its ProfiTools marketing platform.